


Less Dark A Place

by TycoonTwister



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Human!Crowley, Love at First Sight, M/M, Vampire AU, Vampire Making, Vampire!Aziraphale, yeah that's right folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 19:03:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20232835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TycoonTwister/pseuds/TycoonTwister
Summary: The three laws every vampire in England was required to know by heart were: you wouldn’t tell the truth about yourself to humans; you wouldn’t attract the bothersome attention of the few mangy vampire hunters still in the job; you wouldn’t Turn a human without the Council’s approval.Well – Aziraphale managed to break all of them on the very same night. In the samehour, to be precise.





	Less Dark A Place

It’s common knowledge – in the right circles, at least – that the Making of a new vampire isn’t an overtly complicated business: it requires nothing more than a strong mortal heart, a blood exchange, and the courage required to bear the responsibility of extinguishing a person’ life and dragging it back as something else for all the years to come. Aziraphale had never had the chance to arrange the first two, and very much doubted he had the stomach for the third. 

Doing it on accident, though, and without the proper documents released by the local Vampire Council, and in what could only be described as a fitful, miserable stumble of panicked decisions – well, that’s something else entirely. It’s dangerous. And forbidden. 

It’s also something that was not supposed to happen_ at all_. 

Aziraphale had grown quite knowledgeable in the inner workings and complicated etiquette of vampire society: both out of sheer scholarly interest (His maker had lured him in his arms with the promise of a scrumptiously well-furnished bookshop, after all, along with a full tray of Byzantine candied fruits to chomp through while reading), and to keep out of their way as much as possible. 

So far, he was happy to say he had been quite successful; in his four hundred years as a Londoner, he had been summoned to the Vampire court only on four occasions – twice as a consultant for an Old English passage in one of their their blood-smeared statuses no one else was able to work out, once for an unbearably dull Coronation Ball, and once as the appointed liaison for a visiting thousand-year-old envoy from Montecassino who refused to speak anything but Latin. 

For the rest of the time, Aziraphale had made sure to keep his head down, nod in polite acknowledgment of other vampires when he ran into them, and stick to the set of rules that made up the backbone of their world. Which was quite a simple arrangement, really: as vampires, or at least the four or five bloodlines ruling England, didn’t show much creative initiative in anything but the devising of new ways to kill each other in their endless schemes. 

The three laws every vampire was required to know by heart were: you wouldn’t tell the truth about yourself to humans; you wouldn’t attract the bothersome attention of the few mangy vampire hunters still in the job; you wouldn’t Turn a human without the Council’s approval. 

Well – Aziraphale managed to break all of them on the very same night. In the same _hour,_ to be precise. 

He hadn’t asked for any of this; the thought coursed through him like mortal blood, like the hum of a plucked cord, the world sliding off axes under him like the tilting deck of a barge at sea; he wasn’t the type of man, or of man-shaped creature, who would leave the safe path, and disrupt order, and do brave, foolish things like that. It was just that this night had ambushed him from the very start, reaching down into him and getting hold of strings hidden deep underneath, deeper than the heart, deeper than the fear, and dragging him along unseen dangerous paths ever since. 

He was not the type to want any of this; not the type to_ dare._

The man sprawled on the grease-caked concrete of the alleyway, though, the one whose blood Aziraphale was currently kneeling in, smoked glasses lying a few feet away and life throbbing out of the deadly wound under his ribs like a second heart, was. He was brave, and young, and daring, and _ dying_, and he was dying entirely because of Aziraphale. 

The thought felt beyond intolerable; the thought plucked at the strings under his heart so hard it nearly made him cry. It was kind of agony he had only felt when Gabriel’s fangs sank into his jugular, and he realized he would not see the gentle rose fingers of dawn bloom over the roofs of his home ever again. 

Letting this brave young man die would feel like losing the sun all over again. It would be so scary and unbearable it made making the choice almost easy. 

The men were long gone; he couldn’t track down their racing treacherous hearts anymore, and had no real interest in doing so either. But he could hear the man’s heart beat frantically through its last beats, and realize how desperate it sounded, and how strong, more than enough to bear what was about to happen. 

He brushed back the man’s hair from his forehead, startling – _ oh, what a foolish thing you are, Aziraphale_ – at the streak of red his hand left, the blue pallor of the skin underneath. Briefly, he felt the urge to raise words in pray to the night, to the God of stained glass and murmured Latin he had sang for at the monastery, to beg for forgiveness, to ask for help. 

He looked down at the man bleeding out in his arms. It was the end of his quiet half-life, of all his rich, comfortable routine; of the carefully-crafted world he had built himself, and in which he could at times almost forget the Birth of dark and blood and fear that had left him with an eternity of night and no heartbeat. 

As he crouched down and ripped open his wrist and whispered _drink_ in the soft tones of lovers and mothers, he didn’t even remember to be afraid. 

*** 

“Milton, eh? Into complicated celestial family issues?” 

The voice floated to Aziraphale from somewhere on the left of his table, over the edge of the _Paradise Lost_ paperback – not his style, sure, but a particular edition which counted least of sixty copies due to several delicious spelling mistakes in the first chapter. 

Vampire hearing easily excised the voice from the hubbub of a bustling London coffee shop on a late Saturday night, and informed him that the voice was male, and pleasantly Scottish-pointy around the syllables, and spiked with the faintest, tell-tale trace of nervousness. It was all he needed to know. 

It wasn’t the first time someone – men and women, though the latter usually did so with a kind of rueful playfulness that told him they considered the attempt far-fetched in the first place – approached him. He had seen human beauty standards go through an almost infinite range of metamorphoses, and he was positive he would never be quite as sought out as during the glorious days of intrigue and macaroons of Georgian England; but when he walked into a room, his wide gray-blue eyes and porcelain-doll smile still attracted a fair deal of second glances. 

He was not as clueless as he might look; and on more than one occasion he had even reciprocated, and graciously let his human companion buy him another glass of wine or a good slice of cake. He had then gifted them with a pleasant evening of good company and brilliant conversation, a bouquet of sweet-smelling Tea roses waiting for them in the kitchen the next morning, and a letter thanking them for the splendid time and regretting the sudden departure pressing family issues were forcing him to: the words and the memories so graceful and exquisite they barely minded the little puncture marks on their neck. 

Aziraphale loved passionate, intelligent people, regardless of the species; and he didn’t mind company, now and then. 

So tonight, when he heard the question and mentally considered his programs for the night and decided he could use someone to take to the classic movies marathon, he looked up from his book – smiling the soft, courteous smile that showed his pearly white teeth while concealing any trace of fangs. 

And felt it freeze on his face. 

In his long unlife as an omnivorous bookworm and closeted romantic, Aziraphale had read a good chunk of love poetry, too; he remembered now the way poets and songs described the first time they came across the love of their life, using images of fire and sudden light piercing the clouds, of earthquakes and fevers, of all the things marvelous and momentous and alien, magnificent in their strangeness. 

They were not wrong – because all those things were _there_, and he would feel them swell inside his breast in a moment; but what he felt in the precise heartbeat he looked up from his paperback, the very first word of the prologue of their story, was familiarity – a fierce, overwhelming sense of familiarity. Aziraphale saw the man, mortal and so painfully young, a stranger he had never seen before, and something under his ribs chimed in absolute, uncomplicated recognition. He suddenly knew he _knew_ this man, the way flowers knew how to turn on their stems to follow the sun; he suddenly knew every step of his long, careful, colorless existence had brought him to this moment and this table and this conversation, and that he would never have the chance to feel complete without the person standing before him ever again. 

For the first time since the gloomy tenth-century day he saw his last sunlight, Aziraphale’s heart fluttered with something like life under his ribs. It was so unexpected, so absolutely unfathomable he jerked hard, dropping the book on the table with a sharp rustle of paper. He sucked in a breath like a drowning man: eyes wide and snagged on the thin tall figure at his side, the way the neon lights made his copper hair coruscating, the hard, clean lines of him under the layers of black leather. 

He was handsome. He was _warm_, scorchingly-hot, and his warmth was singeing Aziraphale’s skin like a small red sun. 

Aziraphale’s mind coalesced back into something coherent enough to realize he had not answered the man’s question yet, though he had no idea how much time had passed; enough to slide from polite to awkward, apparently – because the man was now shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking painfully embarrassed. 

He plucked his sunglasses – the sort of round smoked things Aziraphale remembered on late-Nineteenth century ladies and Swinging London pop singers – off his nose. Hazel eyes; in the daylight, they must shine the gold of ancient coins, and Aziraphale felt tight with the longing to see it. 

“Oh, Christ,” the man said, charmingly. “Oh, fuck – I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m not – a I’m not a creep, or anything like that.” He raked one hand through his hair. “Which is exactly the kind of things a creep would say. Okay, but – really, it’s just, it’s not exactly the kind of books people read on commute, you know, and I was curious if you were into that stuff or it was just a gift or something, honest – I mean, I wasn’t hitting on you or anything.” The man flinched. He pulled at his hair again, even harder, and Aziraphale watched in some fascination as the tip of his ears reddened to the deep purple of raspberries. “I mean, I _was_ hitting on you, but only if you’re – oh, fuck. Smooth, Crowley. Real smooth.” 

The man produced a weak whine in the back of his throat, as if physically hurt by the foot he had just shoved into his mouth. He held up both hands, taking a step back. 

“Listen, let’s just – let’s just pretend there was no weirdo in black trying to talk to you, okay? I’ll – I’ll go back to my table and ponder hard why I’m such a fucking knob and never bother you again, mh?” 

Aziraphale couldn’t bring himself to talk just yet. The man’s face, which was mobile and clean and expressive like the charcoal sketches of a good artist, fluttered with disappointment. 

“Ah. Okay then. Have, uh, have a good night. Sorry again for being an idiot –” 

“Yes.” Aziraphale’s voice, which usually flowed as rich and mildly warm as milky tea, was suddenly so weak it took him a moment to realize it was his. 

Still, that single word seemed to nail the man to the floor. Instantly. 

“Yes, I am an idiot?” he asked, with polite uncertainty. 

“Yes, I mean, no – no, I don’t think you’re an idiot.” Aziraphale shook his head. He had some resemblance of control on his body again, but the edges of it still felt vaguely wrong, as if he were dreaming, or reeling from a blow to his head. “And no, you didn’t...” – he had to smirk at that deliciously vivacious expression – “… _freak_ _me out_. But yes, I do love complicated relationships in my books.” He gestured to the paperback, still sprawled awkwardly on the floor where he let it fall. “Of the celestial kind or otherwise.” 

Again, the man’s face changed: the invisible artist smearing away the tightness in his jaw, and suddenly he was smiling, face young and exposed and positively _beaming_. The man’s warmth was so intense Aziraphale had to discreetly grab the edge of the table. He hoped he wouldn’t forget himself enough to dig scratches into the wood. 

He looked down, at the charcoal-and-white tiles of the floor; the man followed his gaze. A moment later he was in the middle of the complicated process of folding his long grasshopper legs to pick up Aziraphale’s fallen book, and straightened so abruptly he nearly hit his head against the edge of the table. 

Aziraphale watched him, mind washed clean of any thought of lavish dinners, and tea roses, and morning-after letters. 

The man pressed the battered Paradise Lost in Aziraphale’s hands with the utmost care. Their fingers brushed across the cover. Something under Aziraphale’s breastbone throbbed again. 

“Well, I’m glad,” the man said. “That I didn’t come off as super stalker-y, I mean. Also about not being an idiot, I guess – though I still harbor some doubts about that. Can I –“ 

– tempt me to a drink?” Aziraphale offered. “Gladly. If you do me the honor of getting you one in return.” 

The man’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. The raspberry-blush was back, painting the tip of his ears, crawling up the neck, but Aziraphale felt the sharp certainty this time there was no mortification in it. 

He wondered if it was pleasure. He hoped it was. 

“… Ah, well. Very well.” The man cleared his throat, and grinned. He was toying with the stem of his glasses, with the slightly puzzled frenzy of someone who is furiously trying to remember what you’re supposed to do with your limbs. Then he shoved them into his pocket, smiled wider. 

“I’m – Anthony, by the way. Anthony J. Crowley. Please don’t ask about the J, though.” 

“I won’t,” Aziraphale said, and told him his name, and as Crowley slid into the other chair at his table, he felt the whole of himself reorient towards the man like a compass needle finally finding its True North. 

Crowley's light had seared through Aziraphale’s since he saw him. What he hadn’t realized right away was that Crowley didn’t just burn through him, but through the rest of the world, too. As he told him about his job (associate professor of Astrophysics; oh, of course, so fitting this star of a man would love space); as he inquired about Aziraphale’s bookshop and stoically endured the following twenty-minute-long impromptu lecture on the history of Milton editions; as they shared cake and Crowley rolled the candied orange peels on top towards Aziraphale with a flick of his wrist as obvious as it was gallant; in everything he did, he dimmed the whole world into background, and made light, so like the light of sun Aziraphale half-expected to melt away like beeswax under it. 

Drinks turned into glasses of red, which turned into chocolate cake – Aziraphale never saw why having to consume blood for survival meant giving up on the experience of food altogether, and Crowley had immediately noticed his longing glances at the _sachertorte; _and cake turned into the whole bottle of red, as the cafe sucked in and pushed out great gulps of glamorous Londoners like a pulsing artery, and finally started growing quiet and dark around them. 

Aziraphale’s dusty heart gave a couple more beats – at a particular slant in Crowley’s smile, a split-second of contact when they reached for the napkin dispenser at the same time. It was not a phenomenon completely unknown to his kind; nothing like an organized heartbeat, but a body memory nestled deep in the bones that remembered how it was supposed to react when it felt certain things, words like _emotion_ and _adrenaline_ and_ increased blood pressure_. It was still a wondrous, extremely rare occurrence – mainly because the kind of feelings that triggered skipped beats and bathed breaths and flushing skin are wondrous and extremely rare occurrences in a vampire’s life. 

But Aziraphale felt them, and shivered pleasantly at those echoes life; and when pink warmth suffused his own cheeks, he saw Crowley’s eyes linger on them. 

He was blinded; by all the things he was learning of this man, by his light, by his warmth. He was blinded, and he had never been important enough in the world of the night to warrant much attention; and that was why, when the ginger-haired waitress gently informed them they were closing and they got up from their table, Aziraphale didn’t notice the hunters. 

It was drizzling outside; the streets glittery with gentle quicksilver, the city lights butter-yellow on the underside of the clouds. Crowley paid, ignoring Aziraphale’s bashful protestations; they stepped outside side by side. 

Neither tried to say goodbye. Neither suggested they should be on their way home. Crowley simply asked, “Can I walk you home?”, voice very soft and very serious, and Aziraphale busied himself with opening his enormous tartan umbrella over their heads to hide the shiver that tore down his spine, and said, “yes, please.” 

They walked down the road then, in the vague direction of Aziraphale’s bookshop and the little, well-furnished flat over it: both at the smack center of streets he had seen change from rammed earth to cobble to smooth modern asphalt, in the stumbling organic way of old places and old cities. Aziraphale was holding the umbrella; but Crowley had a couple of inches on him, and after watching him stooped in a painful interrogation mark for two blocks Aziraphale asked him if he wanted to act as umbrella-carrier for the rest of the way. 

Aziraphale realized he liked that, too: the way he was just the right height to burrow his nose in the warm nook between Crowley’s neck and shoulder, the strong, sensitive heart pulsing in the space beside his ear. 

He easily tuned out the background humming of London – feet stomping to burn off the cold, screams, horns, the drum of hundreds of thousands of veins. 

The sound of footsteps at their back, too, cautious, moving softly from shadow to shadow. 

Aziraphale tugged Crowley into a side alley, which was cramped and riddled with dumpsters and glowing dully with yellowed snow, but would bring them home faster. He had no desire to sat goodbye to Crowley, but the cold was still bitter enough to make the tip of his fingers tingle; he didn’t want him catch a cold. Already the leather jacket seemed unsuitably flimsy, and Aziraphale had had to hide a smile when Crowley gallantly offered it to him despite the desperation he was burrowing into his scarf with. 

“So – I, I don’t suppose I can ask you for your… for your number, right?” Crowley looked down at his snakeskin boots – or at least, Aziraphale felt fairly sure he did. He was wearing his round dark glasses again, which had resulted in narrowly avoiding more than one streetlamp in the snowy gloom of the night. Aziraphale found it absolutely ridiculous, and completely endearing. “Or I can – add you on Facebook. Oh, hell – that sounds bloody lame. And I’m fairly sure you don’t have Facebook, do you?” 

“That’s correct.” 

Crowley smiled at his shoes, a lopsided thing. “Yup. Then we, uh, we’re back to good old phone number, I guess. Or I can just give you mine – so if you don’t feel like, uh, ah, hang out again, you can just –” he made a confusing tearing gesture with both hands, as if ripping a piece of paper, or, possibly, Aziraphale’s own portable phone. 

Aziraphale closed the distance between them – and he must have been agitated enough for some of his vampiric speed to show through despite his effort, because he saw the umbrella tremble in Crowley’s grip at the suddenness of the motion, his sharp intake of breath. Not exactly startled, though: coiled with anticipation. 

Aziraphale tilted his chin back. He stared at him hard enough to force him to meet his gaze. 

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, dear,” he whispered. 

Silence. Crowley’s face rippled with agony. Aziraphale saw his hazel eyes flick to his lips, and heard his heart stumble through a beat, out of disappointment, out of the thought of all the lost chances. “Ah,” he croaked out. “Ah, sure. I mean – mh, yeah, it’s fine. I get it. I’m sorry if I – I probably got it all wrong –“ 

Aziraphale rested one hand on Crowley’s arm to stop him; there was another sharp intake of breath, another stutter in his pulse, so sudden he felt a sparkle of worry. Was he holding on too tight? Had he let himself go so cold – it was three days since his last feed – he was freezing Crowley through the fabric of his sleeve? 

But no, no: the look on Crowley’s face, the intent there, told him vampire shortcomings had nothing to do with his racing heart. It was him. Just him. Just _Aziraphale_. 

“I’m afraid you misunderstood,” he said quietly. “What I meant is, I’m not really a phone person. I _do own__ a_ phone – but it’s a landline, and I tend not to answer half the times anyway, I’m afraid. But...” He hesitated. Bit his lip, careful not to draw blood. “… But my shop is two streets over, and I live just above it, and I would like very, very much for you to feel free to come and visit at any time, Anthony Crowley. I’d like that _v__ery much_ indeed.” 

He wavered on the last word, voice small again, weak again. Like at the cafe, it was still enough to make Crowley freeze – thunderstruck with wonder. 

“You would, Aziraphale?” 

He had told him his real name: despite the fact that his name would ring wrong even in this era of _BabyNames.com_ and_ Kaynes_ and _Jaydiens_, despite the fact Crowley was too clever not to ask questions about it at some point. _But Ezra Fell_ had felt so intolerably limp and flat on his tongue, so not him; and he had wanted Crowley to see _him_, not some comfortable cutout of a Soho bookshop owner. 

He realized he was still touching Crowley’s arm – that his momentum had pushed them both against one of the walls that climbed haphazardly to the strip of sky over the alley. He felt fingers tread in his hair, long and strong and reverent. 

“Very much,” he said again. He felt giddy, and terrified, and horribly confused, and he wanted desperately for the world to slow down and let him figure it out while being painfully aware that wasn’t going to happen. He felt _alive_. 

Crowley’s breathing came in short hard pants, skimming his cheek. Aziraphale tilted his head again, oh-so-slightly. Crowley’s heartbeat grew into a thunder, tectonic plates groaning and reshaping the world, and thrummed all the way to the sockets of Aziraphale’s teeth, and by the time Crowley leaned in and guided Aziraphale’s mouth to his, his fangs were out, and razor-sharp. 

Aziraphale was hungry. 

But so was Crowley. 

Before their lips could touch, though, three things happened in quick succession. 

Aziraphale’s ears picked up the tell-tale _twang_ and a second before the bolt narrowly missed his back and sped away into the dark. The shock of burning it left in its wake left no doubts. 

Ashwood stake, and clad in silver for extra safety. 

_Crossbow_ . _Professionals._

Aziraphale turned in the direction the bolt had come from and took a step back in the same seamless motion – pushing Crowley away from the line of fire. He felt his lips peel back from extended fangs, face twisted to accommodate extra teeth and the snarl rippling up from his stomach: his humanity burning away in the cold blue power that lighted up his bones. 

He glimpsed a flash of white on his right, Crowley’s face bleeding out colors as he pressed himself against the wall. He made himself look away, and zero in on the two heartbeats at the end of the alley – how did he not heard them before? Oh, stupid Aziraphale,_ stupid stupid_ – and the black-clad men they belonged to. 

In this form, Aziraphale’s eyes didn’t register hair color or features, because that wasn’t the way this part of himself thought: but he did notice the man on the left was the tallest and the strongest, the twin glint of metal in their arms, and the fact that even leaping right now and at the full force of his reinforced muscles, he would not be able to prevent the hunters from shooting at least one more arrow – two, probably, as he would have to take them out one at a time. 

_More than enough for a killing blow._

“Run along, laddie,” the tall one said to Crowley. He didn’t move. “Vamp bugger nearly got you, but ye safe now. We got this. Not gonna go around sucking lads dry no more, this one.” 

Crowley’s eyes widened, the white flashing behind the glasses. He mouthed something that could have been either the word ‘vampire’, or the word ‘Aziraphale’. 

Aziraphale growled in frustration. They might still miss. They might still underestimate him. Aziraphale might not have called upon so much power in centuries, but he was old, and crafty, and there was powerful blood burning in his veins – and most importantly, he had a tall skinny sun he had to take out of this alive and in pristine conditions. 

_So he wouldn’t go down without a proper fucking fight._

This time, there was no doubt about it; Crowley was calling his name. 

“Aziraphale –“ 

“Stay back,” Aziraphale roared. He sounded so hoarse, so terrified; and the thought sent such a powerful urge to _shield save protect_ searing through Aziraphale he felt his teeth cut through the tender flesh in his gums in their effort to grow _bigger_, his pupils fading away in the cold blue of his magic. 

Crowley obeyed – but didn’t move, either; the faint feeling of him still pulsing somewhere on Aziraphale’s right, close, so close. 

The tall one cocked another arrow – flashed him a grin, looking nervous and fierce and triumphing. The hunters must have seen what this was leading to, like Aziraphale had, knew the odds were stacked against him. There was a second_ click_ of strings and cogs from the general direction of the other man. Aziraphale knew without having to check that two ashwood stakes were now pointed at his heart. 

The crossbow release echoed off the alley walls. Aziraphale’s enhanced senses sent it hum all the way to his fingertips. He crouched low, bracing for his jump, bracing for the flare of agony of blessed wood punching through his rib cage. 

He never had the chance to do any of those things, though. As the arrow tore ominously through the air, he didn’t leap, because a tall, dark shape had suddenly hurled itself in front of him and thrown off his momentum; and he did feel the wet crunch of the bolt hitting flesh and bone, but not the pain, because before it could reach him the stake had already lodged itself into the dark shape’s chest. 

Into Crowley’s chest. 

Time grew thick, molasses-like. The world fissured and creaked around Aziraphale. He wasn’t breathing, and yet he felt like he was drowning, drowning endlessly and clawing for air, and the sensation was so horrible and strange and_ human_ it took him an ungodly amount of time to snap out of it. He was still fast enough to grab Crowley before his legs gave away, to ease him gently to the ground – but it was too late, too fucking late. 

There was blood, bright, arterial blood pouring out of him and steaming in the cold, and Crowley had lost his sunglasses, and his honey-colored eyes were wide and already fading and still fixed on Aziraphale’s monstrous face with the desperate greed of a starving man. 

A sound tore out of Aziraphale’s throat, mournful and animal. 

“What have you done, you foolish man?” He was on his knees, now; Crowley half-slumped against him. Aziraphale’s hands fluttered to the stake protruding from his chest – _felt_ the tip of it tremble with every beat of his heart. “What the hell have you done?” 

But Crowley wasn’t listening; he lifted his hand, instead, shaking like a man in the throes of a fever, and pressing a blood-red caress to Aziraphale’s cheek. 

“You’re,” he croaked, voice gurgling with wet things, “you’re safe.” 

Aziraphale was too shocked to even think of an answer. Crowley smiled. In a blinding pulse of understanding, he remembered the terror in Crowley’s voice as he called his name, and realized it wasn’t terror for himself, but for_ him._

Aziraphale swayed – speared to the ground by that terrible softness of that thought. He felt like falling. He choked out a sob. 

“You stupid, stupid man…” he said. _Moaned_. “You stupid, stupid…” 

Power was already retreating from his skin, pooling back in its dark cold space at the center of him; still, there was enough left of it for Aziraphale to be distantly aware of other things happening at the end of the alley. Voices raised in whispered argument, a frantic string of curses, the words ‘mistake’ and ‘human’ and ‘out of here’ hissed out in quick succession and several times. He grew distantly aware of the rhythmic _clap-clap_ of running boots, too, fading away down the tangle of alleys stretching around them. He could give chase. He could hunt them down. He knew he could do it, and yet he didn’t even consider the idea, like every self-respecting member of his species would have done. 

He had never been a good vampire; he had never been a particularly good man, either. And yet none of that mattered, not when compared to the simple bleak tragedy of Crowley – who loved stars and teaching and feeding ducks at the park – bleeding out in his arms, the heartbreaking waste of it. 

“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale whispered, again and again. “I’m so sorry so sorry so sorr –“ 

“No,” Crowley stopped him; still brushing his cheek, still smiling his little bloody smile. “Beautiful,” he rasped. “Safe.” 

A dollop of darker blood rolled out of his lips. His eyelids fluttered, closed. The hand fell back. Aziraphale caught it before it could hit the ground, and felt the cold of it, and recognized it. 

Nothing about that moment was quiet; but there was silence, barely disturbed by wheezy gasps as Crowley fought to breathe through punctured lungs, and in it Aziraphale suddenly knew that his friend was beyond the help any doctor, and that he wouldn’t last much longer, and that if he, Aziraphale, let him fade away now out of sensible cowardice, it would be the kind of damnation no piece of you come back from. 

_Because if he died_ , came the thought, clean and quiet and true even as Aziraphale’s mind spiraled away, _oh, what a darker place the world would be._

Once that was decided, he didn’t even have to think. The steps unfurled evenly before him, like the tick off lists he made on inventory days: he simply let the grief Crowley’s words had torn through him swell and churn, fill him to the brim, until it turned into something that could pass for courage. 

He adjusted Crowley on his legs; barely noticed the state of his own clothes, the camelskin made obscenely purple with blood. He took hold of the stake still embedded in Crowley’s chest, hands not shaking only because there was no live blood running through them, and pulled, and muttered more apologies and comforting nothings when the young man on his lap choked in pain. More blood pulsed out of the wound, which was gaping and ragged and deep. He could hear Crowley’s heart stumble from beat to beat out of sheer stubbornness. 

“I’m so sorry,” said Aziraphale, once more and for the last time. “I’m so, so sorry.” 

He gave a second sob, as painful as the first one. Then he tore open his wrist with his fangs, the sting burning and welcome, and pressed it to Crowley’s cold lips, and Aziraphale of Canterbury, born into darkness in the year of the Lord 970 AD, gave out his blood for the first time in his life, and out of love. 

*** 

All in all, it went fairly well. Or as well as these things can go: because Aziraphale’s blood still burned through Crowley’s system like acid, cracking him open and reshaping him from inside out, and he still had to watch him scream himself hoarse and keep him from scratching himself raw, and there was pretty much nothing Aziraphale could do to make it better. 

Nothing of value can be born without screaming and struggling and death; no sword can be forged without fire. It was something his Maker had said, as he watched Aziraphale sobbing and writhing and begging on the monastery floor. Aziraphale didn’t think it was true and didn’t think it was a good enough excuse to voluntarily hurt people anyway, but he hoped it was at least true of a Making. Nonetheless, he prayed Crowley would suffer just enough for the magic to take, and that it would be over soon. 

Besides, Aziraphale had racked his brain for ways to make it as comfortable as possible. He had brought him home as soon as his blood rekindled some dwindling fire deep inside Crowley and his friend latched – painfully, oh yes, excruciatingly so, but with a strength that filled Aziraphale’s heart with joy – onto his wrist. He had leaped lightly from rooftop to rooftop, Crowley cradled carefully to his chest, all the way to the warmly-lit first-story window of his flat and the abundance of velvet sofas and thick Persian carpets inside; he had turned off the lights, and made sure he still had a couple of the 0+ blood bags a dear chap at the university clinic discreetly delivered to his bookshop twice a month in exchange for private Latin lessons to his undergraduate son. 

He had, most importantly perhaps, sat close by when Crowley started screaming in agony, keeping up a steady stream of whispered reassurances and soothing nonsense, never leaving his side; not even to change out of his ravaged clothes, the blood stiffening into brown crevices and canyons and gorges on the knees of his trousers, the front of his jacket. 

It was terrifying, and the thought it was his blood and the poison in it wreaking such havoc on Crowley’s body was a special brand of agony. It still felt good and right, because it was much more than his Maker had done for him. 

It ended, mercifully, about an hour before sunrise; the first part of it, anyway. Aziraphale was sitting how he had for the best part of the night, back against his favorite leather chair and knees pressed against his chest like a forlorn child, the promise of sunlight already making his eyes prickle, when Crowley’s body suddenly _stopped_. 

Aziraphale didn’t quite remember this phase of the process, as his experience in the matter pretty much consisted of his own Making and some overheard gossip. For a moment, he fretted he had made some unforgivable mistake. 

He delicately tilted Crowley’s head towards him and forgot his fears. He was as still as a corpse, yes – but no corpse’s skin would look quite so luminous, like molten moonlight, or have blue shadows so delicate around its eyes, more like carefully applied makeup than like bruises. Already immortality was smoothing out imperfections, sharpening cheekbones; and while he mourned the flushed _warmth_ he had been drawn to, Aziraphale felt his heart flutter with another heartbeat at the thought of how striking an immortal Crowley was going to be. 

No time to waste, though; Aziraphale carried Crowley to his room, and the large, fluffy bed surrounded by solid windowless walls that was his personal revenge against centuries of sleeping in dreadful crypt coffins. Then the dawn was upon him, and he fell into the deep dreamless slumber of his kind with Crowley pressed close against his heart. 

The following night, Aziraphale was there when Crowley woke up. He had heard stories, about the first Awakening of newly-made vampires, the shocking gruesomeness and misery in them. He was ready for sudden attacks, and for frenzied bloodlust; he was ready for the man he had saved being buried for weeks and months under a horrible thing of broken violence. 

None of that happened. Crowley_ did_ leap several feet back as soon as his eyes snapped open, knocking over no less than two chairs, one puff, and several precious bone china cups perched awkwardly on a spare Regency coffee table – that was on Aziraphale, though; never really moved past his Victorian bric-a-brac mania; and when he took in the unfamiliar flat he was in, and his and Aziraphale’s blood-caked clothes, and the sheer prismatic brightness of his new vampire sight, Crowley spent several minutes trying to work himself into a panic attack his body wasn’t physically capable of anymore. But that too passed, and when Aziraphale tentatively presented him the bags of blood Crowley was ravenous but not feral, and as he let the last of the empty bags fall with a wet_ plop_ on the floor and looked at him for the first time, Aziraphale felt himself nearly coming undone with relief and gratitude. 

The man staring back at him – through golden, sulfurous, glorious eyes – wasn’t a mindless wraith, crazy-eyed and twisted with hate; he didn’t jump on him to tear his throat open, pushed past anything remotely human by a single night of death. Instead, he was the man that had made his ancient heart falter the night before, and God almighty, nothing _less_. 

Aziraphale watched Crowley push himself into a sitting position, slowly. It took him several tries before finding his voice. He watched him lick his lips, flinch at the sting of his new fangs. 

“A… Aziraphale.” 

Aziraphale nodded, and leaned in cautiously to touch his arm, feeling very old, and very tired, and almost happy. 

“That’s right, dear boy,” he said. “I – I’m afraid there are many important things we ought to talk about.” 

Crowley blinked. Gave a slow, hesitant nod. “I, think you’re right.” A pause. “Can I ask you something first?” 

“Anything,” Aziraphale said, meaning it. 

“Am I vampire?” 

Well, that wasn’t what Aziraphale had expected. At all. 

“Err. Ah, as a matter of fact – yes, yes you are, dear. How, how did you know –“ 

“’Was just spitballing,” said Crowley, a dazed note in his voice. “The blood, the weird jumpy thing I did back then, no heartbeat. Read lots of urban fantasy, you know.” 

“Ah. Well, ah, I see. I reckon I should tell you I am a child of the night too, of course.” 

“Oh. _Oh_.” Crowley nodded, more vigorously now. “Figures. No one could be that pretty without supernatural help.” 

A pained grimace crossed his face as soon as he realized what he had just said – and he cringed, mortified with his own idiocy. Aziraphale hid a silly pleased smile behind his hand, and felt still very tired and almost happy, but maybe a little less old. 

“Ah, err – shit. Ah. Err. Nice. So, apparently I’m_ so_ not gonna be one of those suave undead chaps Laurell Hamilton always harps on about. Ehm.” Crowley scratched his cheek. Was silent for a long moment. “Can I still drink coffee?” 

“Of course.” 

“Then I – I think I need a mocha. A big mocha. And a fucking cupcake, too, with lots of sprinkles. And – and then you can tell me everything.” 

Crowley was patting frantically at the pockets of his leather jacket – the silver, blue-threaded paleness of his hands startling against the flakes of human blood still covering almost every inch of it. He looked like he was searching for something, quite desperately. 

Aziraphale made himself push through the white-hot surge of panic at the memories that blood brought back, the stake pulsing in his hands with Crowley’s failing heart, and figured out instantly what he was looking for. He fished a little cloth bundle out of his jacket. 

Crowley took it with reverent care, and gingerly slipped on the obnoxious smoked glasses Aziraphale had salvaged from the alley at the last moment, and looked different, but complete. 

Aziraphale wasn’t a fool: he knew that fixed nothing, that there was still so much to figure out. He had brought a young bright man he had barely had time to meet into a life of darkness, and secrecy, and danger, and without asking for his permission first; he was a mildly-ineffectual vampire who had just challenged centuries of vampire conventions in one night, and who had no particularly spectacular power to protect them with. He had forsaken any chance of a quiet, noiseless existence in the backwaters of time, and had no idea what the next night would bring, and had so many things to teach to this beautiful creature he saved and made, and very little idea how to do it. 

Still – still, when he closed his eyes, Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s presence like a little red sun against his eyelids. 

And for it, the world was far less dark a place than it could have been. 

“I think it’s a rather splendid idea, my dear.” 


End file.
